Slater wins the Dally M, but what about the big men?

yeah Leaguey.. good observation.

What about the BIG M awards. I could recommend a sponsor!.. lol

Hey Will,the players they have had over their short history, the way they have set themselves up down in Melb, the junior program they have down in Melb, the fact they won a premiership in 1999 and have gone on to win a couple of other premierships and after last year to finish minor premiers this year and be premiership favourites. In anybodys language that would constitute a 'proud history',you goose!! Go back to watching NSWRL mate,it may be the only way you see your team win a premiership and manage to have a 'proud future' ! Must be hard to see the SOO be won by QLD every year and watch interstate sides walk away with the premiership every now and then huh?? Suck it up princess!

He can't kick goals so he would just be one of the 28 other guys on the field that watch the two actual players have a shoot out.

As I cast an eye over the talent in R.L , Billy Slater stands out . If only he played Union . he would be an International legend.

I like it. Though it would be difficult to come up with a criteria to award the Artie B. Player who contributes most to the teams success without being flashy? Would it be open to wingers too the finishers dont get much of a look in either for the Dally M.

Look i completely agree that the big men are left out of these awards, it is unfair but that is just how it is...... It is not the system that is at fault here. The problems lies with a few things firstly, the modern game means no big man in the middle of the field is on the field for the entire game and thus is not in the spot light the entire game unlike, slater, lockyer, cameron smith, keiran foran, cooper cronk. The ones that are capable of playing plenty of minutes and are good at what they do are amongst the votes but often these guys are plagues by injury or suffer suspensions from being amongst the rough stuff all game.... The next problem is the selectors of the Dally M points..... These guys are often playmakers or backs themselves with the occasional forward here and there.... plus they faiil to overlook the fact that for example matt scott goes from the field for 30 mins a game but his team fall in a heap without him out there... all these guys see is when he is on and doing the hard work that johnathon thurston and matt bowen shine...... The same thing happened in origin 1 this year. sure Smith played a great game of footy but Matt Scott was the best on the field and no one was anywhere near him, but smith win the points...... selectors need to take the forwards into the consideration more often and until that happens the dally M medal is a useless peice of junk..... Just for the record i am neither a cowboys or a QLD fan so there is no biase here.... When the system or selectors change then i will start to watch the Dally M's because we may as well have a vote for who has been the best fullback, hooker or half in the game and award them the medal....

To win the Dally M vote whilst competing with Smith, Cronk and other good players is a remakable achievement. On ya Billy

Of course the cheats had no idea Slater had won the medal when they rested him.....of course not.

From the votes that I saw - it seemed that Greg Alexander was the only judge consistently handing out points to forwards. Time to bring a few of the big boppers in as judges, so they can have a turn at looking after their own.

Hayne never realistically should have been in with a chance and he wasn't. I was merely alluding to the fact that the media seems to think Jarryd is the best thing since Paul Gallen's State of Origin II performance which has recently displaced sliced bread from the top of the greatest ever human achievements list. I tend to agree with Gaz below, in fact to go further I would suggest Hayne is a shadow of the player Slater is. Go to a game and watch the amount of work Slater does off the ball in both defence and attack to help the team compared to the chosen one, it is easy to see who is better. Hayne can do things no other player is capable of but that does not make him a better player.

Hayne is a shallow water man at best. A great player when he wants to be but that's only 20% of the time. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.

Hayne would have had to have been the MOTM in every game the Eels won for him to be in contention.

In the AFL, where the refs vote, it is always midfiielders (I would argue the equivalent of RL halves) that get their hands on the ball more and therefore get more of the brownlow's. Good fullback these days play like halves in attack so it is not a surprise that they win lots of Dally M's. I don't think this is something that can be fixed, it is the nature of the beast. Matt Scott basically won Origin 1 for QLD with the big run that set up their last try, but he wasn't man of the match was he? Sam Thaiday was awasome in all games (incl the losing game 2), but Cam Smith got man of the series. I was a young sharks fan in the Gavin Miller era, he was a brilliant ball playing second rower - much like the type of player Glenn Stewart is turning into the last couple of years (when he is not punching on with kiwi's - are we seriously going to keep defending Stewarts bone head act of punching Blair as they left the field?). He played like a five-eigth in many ways, he was probably one of the first forwards to play 'on the edge' like many of them do now. Gallen put in an incredible effort to finish 5th considering he played in a team that won only 8 games (incl SOO no.2) and it is very unlikely a player from the losing ream got many 3 pointers. One thing you know about Gal, was that if Cronulla won, he probably got the 3 points in 5 out of those 7 games. BTW, someone said it was unfair orgin was counted, but it i is not, as these games only counted for people that were forced to miss a club game to play in that orgin game I think. All in all, the awards were well deserved though I thought Captain of the year was in pretty poor taste given Cam Smith seems not have have fully accepted that the Storm cheated their way to 2 premierships (just look at how Manly smashed them to pieces in 08 GF when they were missing one of their 'big 4') - not great leadership in my view. Thought they should have given it to Locky as he has lead the Broncos really well this year.

Unfortunately it is the "pretty" players that will always be winning the Dally M while the media are the ones voting on the award. The only real surprise this year I think is that Jarryd Hayne was not in contention. I don't think the ref should be voting like in the other code that shall not be mentioned on a league page. They should be concentrating on doing their job, they struggle enough with that now. Maybe the touchies or video ref could vote, they don't really watch the game at the moment so maybe this would get them interested.

Sledgeross - in regards to the 2nd brawl I think they should have only suspended Blair, Glenn Stewart, Brett Stewart & Lussick (and I am a Manly supporter). The rest of the Manly & Storm players were not punching on. It seems like the NRL are not too bothered with players fighting each other 1 on 1 (unless it is on the sideline) but are not OK with their team mates trying to separate the fight. I guess the players from now on should continue punching on until the ref awards a TKO or a player wins by knock out while their team mates can form a circle around the combatants and shout encouragement.

Mals, so should Sisa Waqa have been suspended?

"It seems Cronulla second rower Gavin Miller could hold a special place in rugby league’s record books for some time. He won back to back Dally M’s in 1988 and 1989, but since then no forward, excluding hookers, has won the gong." Didn't David Fairleigh win one?

Yes Stewart was incorrectly sin binned. The touch judge reported that he threw punches. This did not happen. A player should not be sin binned for wrapping his arms around an opponent to stop him throwing dog shots.

Scott - Gift went very close didn't he. Shows how valuable he is to Manly & why he will be greatly missed during the finals series.